It’s been a long road, but I’m happy to announce that I’ve accepted a position as the School of Education, Health, and Society C. Michael Armstrong Professor at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. It’s an endowed, tenure-track, joint position between the School of Education, Health, and Society (EHS) and Miami’s Armstrong Interactive Media Studies (AIMS) program. I’ll be starting in January, 2010.

As many of you know, I’ve had significant previous experiences at Miami, first as an undergrad in Miami’s (late) Interdisciplinary Studies program, then as a visiting faculty member there for several years, and subsequently as a staff member of Miami’s Project Dragonfly. When I heard about the position, I was initially reticent — would going back to Miami truly be the best fit for me? At the time, it felt a little early for me to be applying for jobs, but I gave it my best shot anyway, as I was very curious to find out how Miami was changing in recent years.

In the subsequent weeks and months, I learned a great deal about Miami’s new vision under President Hodge and Provost Herbst, and it began to sink in how exciting and innovative this position was for Miami (not to mention how amazingly good of a fit it was for what I wanted from a faculty position). I became more and more intrigued, and when I interviewed in February, I was completely blown away by the commitment that both the EHS (under Dean Carine Feyten) and AIMS (under Glenn Platt and Peg Faimon) had for novel staffing models and promoting productive interdisciplinary work. The Armstrong Professors (my position and one in the School of Fine Arts) do not sit within departments, the resources of both EHS and the AIMS program are top-notch (McGuffey Hall’s renovation was phenomenal!), and all of the faculty I met seemed committed to supporting my goal of figuring out how exactly new media and games should guide learning for future generations.

I just got back from a brief curricular retreat with the AIMS faculty and am looking forward to working with everyone. Sitting on the faculty with engaged researchers who do everything from investigating high-end virtual reality spaces through developing models of how the humanities might be reshaped for the digital era made it clear that Miami is exactly where I should be. I know from my earlier experiences that Miami’s undergrads are also superb, and I’m looking forward to building an undergraduate research group on new media, games, and learning once I get settled in Oxford. With all of this in mind, choosing Miami was just, well, a no-brainer, I guess?

In a year in which the academic job market has withered, I’m humbled that I was able to get a job that’s so perfect for the kinds of work I want to do. I have high hopes that this position will serve as a good model for how novel interdisciplinary research can be fostered at the University level, and it’s going to be incumbent upon me to now do good work in the spaces I think need most addressing in understanding learning — bridging traditional educational disciplines and the fantastic new stuff going on with interactive, digital media. It’s a big task, but right now I just feel like I’m a very, very lucky dude.

Anyway, I’m excited and happy! In the next few months, as I finish the dissertation, I’m sure I’ll have more to say about the position and my move to Miami. But, for now, expect a few tweaks to the site in the coming weeks, and even some more regular blog posting (I’ll need to do something else other than write my diss, right?).